Chapter 04.1 - Who Is God?

Who Is God?

"This absolute and unique "I," beside whom there can be none else: this "I" who alone summons us to "hear" Him, and this "Thou" to whom alone we are to turn f or succour absolutely -this is the meaning of "Lord," just as in a remarkable passage in Hosea we read: "It is thou!" It is from this point that dogmatic reflection must start, from this absolute Lord, not from a neutral definition of the Godhead" . Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God "We cannot get behind God--behind God in His revelation--to try to ask and determine from outside what He is. We can only learn and then attempt to repeat what He Himself alone can tell us and has told us--who He is." Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics "When Christian faith speaks of God as a "person," it maintains both the activity of God as an expression of his will and the personal and spiritual nature of the Christian relationship be- tween God and men. The term "person," which naturally is a figure of speech, stands guard against the transformation of the conception of God into an abstract idea, and against its being understood as a force of nature." Gustaf Aulen, The Faith of the Christian Church What can the thinking man say about God? This question has become more crucial since man has continued in his conquest of our world and the space around it. Can man no longer speak to God "up there," as Bishop John A. T. Robinson contends? ¹ What can we say about the idea of God that is meaningful? On what basis can we say it? These questions have elicited different answers from different perspectives.

    Rational method.-- Through the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy, theologians speak of the attributes by the method of vias, or ways. The first way was via negationis, or the way of negation. This involves speaking of God without the imperfections in man. God is without sin, without limitations, without death, and other qualities. This has little in common with the Christian view of God who reveals positive knowledge of himself. The second way was viaeminentiae, or the way of eminence. One attributes to God in the form of perfection all the good attributes of his creatures. If man has limited knowledge, God has infinite knowledge. If man is powerful, God is omnipotent. The third way was via causalitatis, or way of causality. This predicates of God the necessary attributes to explain the world of nature and intelligence.

At best these are human attempts to speak of God. If God is hidden, or Deus absconditus, then these statements reveal to us little more than human opinion. It is not possible for human nature as it is to come to a realistic view of God. The sinfulness of man distorts his picture of what God is like. Karl Barth declares concerning the vias or ways: "God is the One who is free even in His being for us, in which He is certainly not to be apprehended only by means of negative concepts. Again, so far as the via eminentiae is concerned, it is not true that as our concepts try to surpass earthly realities in the form of superlatives they necessarily move towards the love of God turned to the world and manifested in the world." ² We must turn elsewhere for our knowledge of God. Logical positivism: Logical positivism, with its emphasis on the use of language and the principle of verification analysis,³ declares that nothing meaningful can be said about God, because verification of the transcendent Being cannot be made in the same sense that other facts can be verified. Metaphysics, or the discussion of a transcendent reality, is to be eliminated. Serious objections can be raised concerning whether language is limited in the fashion that these philosophers contend. Some of the men in this movement have modified their position concerning the nature of language. Although we are not attempting to discuss the objections systematically, we would note the diverse viewpoints of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Hick. Wittgenstein modified his earlier views to say that there are many "language games" in which many different types of non-verification statements can be made that are meaningful, and prayer is included in the list.⁴ John Hick defends the idea of eschatological verification of the existence of God. At the end of life one can prove or disprove the existence of God.⁵ The student of theology can learn much from the use of language, but as a Christian he cannot assent to the central motif that it is meaningless to talk about God.⁶ Religio-genetic: Karl Barth uses this phrase to describe the approach of Schleiermacher, and it can be applied to Ludwig Feuerbach. Schleiermacher "tried to interpret the attributes of God as an objectification of the individual aspects of the religious self-consciousness."⁷ From his consciousness man concludes that God is eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. When he reacts against his conscience, he feels that God is holy and just. When he resolves his state of disharmony, he conceives that God is love and wise. Feuerbach, in a similar vein, believed that God is a projection of man’s best thoughts.⁸ It is true that men make gods after their own image. But even then men have been warned of the dangers of idol worship. Christian faith rejects such a beginning point and speaks of the revelation of God. To this we now turn. Biblical revelation: It remains an axiom that if we are to know about God in any meaningful way our knowledge must come from him. Self-revelation can be our only hope of a valid knowledge of God. The Christian faith maintains that God has revealed himself in many different ways. Its primary emphases are on the revelation through men appointed as prophets, or spokesmen for God, and the finality of self-revelation in the Incarnation. The appearance of Jesus Christ in human history marks the turning point in the groping of man for a certain knowledge of God. The Incarnation means that God has descended, and when man knows Jesus Christ he knows God the Father also (John 14:8-11). The record of the appearance of Jesus Christ and its meaning for salvation is contained in the New Testament. It would be foolish to presume that knowledge of God is the only important item considered in the Incarnation. If God does exist for the sake of knowledge, it would be good to know him. But the important fact is that the Incarnation did not take place to give a certain true knowledge of God, but it took place for the redemption of man. Knowledge of God without redemption would be of little value. On the other hand, one could not know redemption without some knowledge of God. Incomplete knowledge: The Christian faith has never maintained that it knows everything about God. The Bible is designed for the purpose of salvation (John 20:31). But it is necessary to maintain that our knowledge, as far as it goes, is true knowledge. One can make the statement that all assertions about God are symbolic, but this must not be understood to mean that the symbols are not meaningful. Paul Tillich declares that the only non-symbolic thing one can say about God is that he is "being-itself."⁹ Is not this symbolic in the final analysis? Words never fully convey the whole story, but words are all that we have for communication. We must use them carefully, for there comes the limitation in which they will not carry any more freight. We have to use them as far as they will go. One example will help point up our problem. Some theologians are down on the phrase "personal God." It carries with it the ideal of individuality. But here we are in a dilemma. If we do not say "God is personal," we do not use the highest form of existence that we know apart from God. If we do use it, we run the risk of making God conform to an image of man’s personality. In this matter we must use the best and highest term we have and realize that it does not express all that can be expressed about God. Definition: ---To give a comprehensive definition of God is quite impossible. Theologians have attempted to give short definitions for practical use. Augustus Strong, a Baptist, wrote, "God is the infinite Spirit in whom all things have their source, support, and end."¹⁰ The Westminster Confession, which Charles Hodge regarded as probably the best ever written by man, says, "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." The New Hampshire Confession of Faith, a Baptist work, declares:

"We believe that there is one, and only one, living and true God, an infinite, intelligent Spirit, whose name is Jehovah, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth; inexpressibly glorious in holiness, and worthy of all possible honor, confidence, and love; that in the unity of the God-head there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption.”

Each statement of the Confession is anchored in biblical assertions. A modern attempt to define God in propositional form does not fare as well as more historical assertions. Paul Tillich’s definition offers extreme latitude: "God . . . is the name for that which concerns man ultimately."¹¹ This definition could fit primitive animism as well as apply to the sophisticated philosophical theology of Paul Tillich. It will fit any form of man-made idol. It cannot be an adequate definition for the living God. Even if God is not the ultimate concern of men, he is still the Lord and Judge of the world. The Bible does not give a systematic definition of God. One has to appeal to various assertions of the Scriptures. It is from the data of the Scriptures that we are able to say that God is Spirit, or that he is holy. The attributes: Theologians have used various arrangements to deal with the various attributes, or characteristics, of God. They have spoken of natural and moral attributes-the natural relating to his existence and the moral to his truthfulness and goodness. Others have spoken of intransitive and transitive attributes. The intransitive relate to the being of God and the transitive relate to his effects Perhaps the most common are incommunicable and communicable. The incommunicable relates to his being, while the latter speaks of attributes for which there is a likeness in the human spirit. We prefer not to follow an arbitrary division such as this. We shall begin with self- revelation of God and deal with the various ways in which God has revealed himself. The Self-Revelation of God The Name of God

A beginning point of self-disclosure is by means of one’s name. There are many nouns and adjectives ascribed to the Being who is also called God. But God is not his name. However, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is known by a name. His name is usually written in English as Yahweh (a transliteration) or Jehovah (a poor transliteration). More than 6,700 times God is called Yahweh in the Old Testament. This is in contrast to the term Elohim (God) which appears only 2,500 times. There are other names used to designate God such as El Shaddai, the Almighty God, Adonai or Lord, and others. The significant name is Yahweh. This is his personal name. Just as I introduce myself by my name, so God has given us his name-Yahweh. Emil Brunner maintains that the name should not be translated, as is done in Exo 3:14, "I AM That I AM." This detracts from the more significant fact that God has revealed himself by name. Brunner also states that such a translation tends to make God an object of philosophical definition rather than the self-revelation to Israel. ¹² The revelation of Yahweh emphasizes that God is no longer hidden but chooses to disclose himself to man. He is not content to remain in self-sufficient isolation. He moves toward man to make him his own. The culmination of his revelation by name is the final revelation of possible relationship in Jesus Christ whereby we can call God "our Father." Jesus came to reveal the Father (Mat 11:27 ) , and it is by the Spirit that man cries out in faith, "Abba!" or "Father" (Rom 8:15-16 ) . The fact that God reveals himself by name should warn us against such vague appellations as "The First Cause," "The Moral Law," "The World Soul," "The Unmoved Mover," and other similar terms. When one is content to speak in vague generalities about God’s self- revelation, one does little in honoring God. The self-revelation of God by his name is to be placed above what one might learn from looking at the creation. Having existed from eternity without need of a creation, God did not have to create. The fact that there is something as opposed to nothing points up his "outgoing" nature. In connection with this we might raise the question of the possible knowledge of God through nature. Modern theology has been divided on this issue, especially theologians Karl Barth and Emil Brunner. Barth has maintained in the past that there is no knowledge of God apart from the historical revelation. Brunner maintains that there is revelation in the creation, which is to be distinguished from a so-called "natural theology." The matter of a natural theology deals with the issue of whether man has an innate knowledge of God. The Scriptures seem to indicate that revelation in creation is a possibility, because from this type of knowledge man is charged with guilt for his idolatry. The book of Romans concludes that man is without excuse, because he continues to corrupt the revelation of God within the creation (Rom 1:19-20). If one maintains the careful distinction between "natural theology" and "revelation in nature," then the biblical answer is that there is some knowledge of God.¹³ The value of "revelation in nature" is in terms of man’s responsibility. Regardless of how much one stresses it, it is not a redemptive knowledge that comes to man. He still needs the good news of redemption, regardless of his astute deductions from the creation.

God as Person

It is extremely important to note God’s self-revelation with regard to the concept of person or personal. Some reject the word "person" and use instead the term "personal," declaring, "The symbol `personal God’ is absolutely fundamental because an existential relation is a person-to-person relation. Man cannot be ultimately concerned about anything that is less than personal." ¹⁴ The word "person" is not fully adequate to describe him, but we could not be satisfied with an impersonal "it," or "thing." Certainly the term "person" is a better concept than an impersonal one.¹⁵ The word "person" or "personal" embodies ideas that are important when one speaks of God. We must speak of God as self-determinative, self-conscious, and active. All of this is in the term "personal."¹⁶ It is necessary to speak in person-to-person relationships with God and man as prerequisites for religious experience. This explains why man has had the tendency to attribute souls to the inanimate objects that he worships. Man is not satisfied with that which is less than himself. The idea of person is necessary to speak of other phases of God’s self-revelation. It is difficult to think of God’s loving without the requisite idea of person. If God is impersonal, an "it" or "thing," how can he understand right from wrong? And what is more important, how can he command me to do that which is right? Without the idea of person one might ask if God knows as much as man does in the moral sphere, for man does know something of right and wrong. There are, to be sure, objections to the term "person," but it is the best one we have. It fits the biblical descriptions, for in the Old Testament God speaks of himself in the personal pronoun "I."

God as Holy

"A doctrine of God which does not include the category of holiness is not only unholy but also untrue."¹⁷ To say that God is holy means that he transcends all that is human and earthly; defined in an ethical sense, this means that he is pure, without sin, and righteous. "To be holy is the distinguishing mark peculiar to God alone: it is that which sets the Being of God apart from all other forms of being."¹⁸ In an ethical sense, holiness emphasizes the necessity of the atonement for man provided by God. Without an atonement, a covering, man cannot enter the holy presence of God without being annihilated. Aulen states that the holiness of God is significant in four ways: ( 1 ) "It asserts the purely religious character of the idea of God." This is placed in opposition to religion’s being a matter of morality and ethics. (2) It emphasizes "the majesty of God" in opposition to transforming Christianity into a panacea for attainment of human happiness and enjoyment. God’s holiness is unconditional in his confronting men. (3) It emphasizes God’s "unfathomableness" in opposition to rationalistic religion, which accepts only what reason can comprehend. (4) "It repudiates all attempts to identify the divine and the human in contrast to mysticism."¹⁹ The revelation of God in his holiness is often pitted against his self-revelation in love. If one is to speak correctly the two can never be separated. One must speak of holy love. Holiness means that God is true to himself and his will in expressing his love. Love that is without self-respect is not true love. With regard to redemption, both love and holiness are expressed. To say that God loves means that he seeks man’s good. To say that he is holy in his love means that he deals with man’s sin in harmony with his own nature. He does not take a light view of sin. God alone is holy. It is possible that certain objects may be revered and respected as holy. One may attach certain dread and awe to objects, but in the Bible the term is primarily used with reference to the nature of God in his self-revelation: he is Holy?²⁰ One might note Barth and Brunner’s criticism of Otto.²¹ "God’s holiness is not a quality in and of itself; it is that quality which qualifies all other qualities as divine. His power is holy power; his love is holy love."²² Holiness and wrath-related to the concept of God’s holiness is the idea of wrath. God in holy love draws men to himself. In love he seeks to deal with their sin. When love is rejected, judgment follows. "In the presence of divine love, there are, fundamentally, only two possibilities--either it subdues man, or it does not. In the former case the judgment of God restores and saves; in the latter case it rejects and separates.²³ Even in wrath and judgment the love of God is involved. Judgment comes in the form of separation from God, because love will not overrule the independent action of the human will. It can "will" to reject God’s acceptance. The judgment of God has been called the "strange work" of God ²⁴ because it is outside of his declared intention to save men. This takes place where the Son is "not known, not loved, not trusted, not recognized."²⁵ One cannot turn the assertion around and say that love is God, as the Christian Scientists do.

God Is Love

    The simple assertion that God is love (1Jn 4:8) is overwhelmingly profound. This means that everything that one can say about God involves a statement relative to his love. If one asked the reason for God’s love, there is "only one right answer: because it is His nature to love." ²⁶ The New Testament employs a special word with reference to God’s love. It uses the verb αγαπαω, agapao, meaning to love in the sense of goodwill and benevolence. It is a love not based on the personal worth of the object, but it is a love that creates worth. Man in sin is loved in spite of his unloveliness. The verb agapao is to be distinguished from another word used, which is phileo-the type of love prompted by respect and admiration as among men. This is not the sense in which the Gospel of John declares that "God so loved." It is, therefore, agape that is the superior love of God. Agapao creates a response where there is no equality in love. It is an uncaused love.

One can see, therefore, that it is agape (the noun from agapao) that stands behind the significance of the atonement. This is the love that is outgoing and self-giving, even though the recipient is not worthy of it. The New Testament speaks of this love in contrasts: "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. . . . While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rom 5:8-10). One cannot understand the message of the New Testament, the gospel, without reckoning with this unique love.

The love of God has significance for human relations. Only God can command us to love our neighbors. The Categorical Imperative of Kant can at best invoke men to respect each other, but there is a difference between respect and outgoing love. The love of man for his neighbor becomes a reality only when man becomes a new creature in the love of God. It becomes a mockery to command love toward men without a relation to the one who is Love. Barth has stated that the definition of a person can only have meaning as one loves God and is loved by God in return. Without being associated with the love that is divine, man never really knows what it means to be a true person.

God is Lord

When Moses was given the Ten Commandments (Exo 20:1-18), they had as authority behind them this significant statement: "I am the Lord your God." God has revealed himself as Lord. As the Lord who creates, he lays down the foundation of life in moral terms. As Lord, he can legislate what is right and wrong. In the final analysis the escape from relativities in ethical systems lies in coming to the one who is authoritative and nonrelative. The lordship of God means that he stands above human history and judges men in their actions. As Lord, he directs history to its planned consummation. But supremely as Lord he enters the affairs of mankind to redeem a hopeless man-centered situation. Out of the continuing self-degradation of man, he brings meaning and salvation to those who acknowledge his lordship. The lordship of God is a necessary concept for us to grasp the surety of his promises. The guarantee of the covenant promise of forgiveness in the death of Christ would be meaningless apart from him who is able to perform his promises. Last, it is by the Spirit that we call him Lord, says the apostle Paul. In submission to his reign over our lives we acknowledge his right, his redemption, and his righteousness.

God as Grace

Grace is the silent presupposition of the existence of all men. With the creation of the world, the grace of God has been continuously expressed, either silently or openly. With all the emphasis in the Old Testament on the Torah or law, behind the concept of God’s law there is grace. To see how obvious this is, one has only to ask the question: why has judgment not fallen for my sins before now? Sheer rebellion against the law should bring immediate punishment. God has not chosen the role of policeman of the universe, to bring sharp punishment immediately. One must realize that in God’s power and knowledge no sin goes unnoticed. Instead, he has chosen to express his grace to the end that man might repent of his bent toward self-destruction. Grace, as revealed by the God of all grace (1Pe 5:10), comes from the Greek word charis and means "kindness which bestows upon one what he has not deserved." ²⁷ Berkhof defines it as "the unmerited goodness or love of God to those who have forfeited it, and are by nature under a sentence of condemnation."²⁸ To say that God is gracious, therefore, is to speak of something that belongs to the very nature and essence of the being of God.²⁹ Grace has many relations in the New Testament. It is the basis of God’s gifts to man in Jesus Christ (Eph 1:6Eph 2:8-10). Grace is the motive of redemption (2Co 8:9 ) . By grace through faith the believer is justified (Rom 3:24). In the knowledge of his grace we wait for the consummation of our salvation and the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ (Tit 2:11-13 ) . Within the realm of theology there are two conflicting definitions of grace. In the above definition grace is understood as a benevolent disposition on God’s part that governs all his actions toward man. The opposite viewpoint is that defined by Roman Catholic theologians: Grace is defined as a supernatural gift, a divine substance that is imparted from God through the sacraments to man. "Grace is a positive reality superadded to the soul."³⁰ Sanctifying grace is a "real quality infused into the soul and making it Godlike-a quality which is of permanent character, to be destroyed only by sin."³¹ One can see the implications of this type of definition. We will point out only two. First, the loss of grace is possible through mortal or deadly sin. By certain sins one loses his place in the body of Christ and, like a dead cell, is passed out of the body. Roman theologians proceed to speak of actual grace-still a substance-that is necessary for the avoidance of sin. But one can enter spiritual death even after he is redeemed. The second area relates to baptism.. Children who die unbaptized have not received the supernatural substance in baptism and therefore are denied the beatific vision and salvation. B. V. Miller stated, concerning the unbaptized child, "There is no measure or proportion between the natural happiness that will be their lot in limbo, and the inconceivable felicity of heaven, of which man’s carelessness may so easily deprive them. Moreover, it must be clearly understood that the child dying without baptism is definitely lost." ³² With the publication of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church some modification of tone is expressed. It must be first said that baptism of infants is necessary. "The church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptist shortly after birth." ³³ But as far as talking about limbo as the state of death for the un-baptized infant the Catechism does not mention the word. There is a paragraph regarding children who have died without Baptism, in which the church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them." Then the paragraph refers to the words of Jesus about allowing the little children to come to Him, and this "allows us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism."³⁴ This is a most natural logical deduction with regard to baptism in the concept of grace as a spiritual substance. It would be an impossible conclusion for the biblically oriented writer who begins with grace as the basic attitude of God. One cannot alter this attitude of God who wills that all men be saved. Grace is manifest even in judgment, for God gives to man his own way of separation. One can never be in doubt as to whether he is in the grace of God. This is evident from the definition. Falling from grace on the biblical ground is a contradiction in terms. It is not to be equated with the question of whether one can be lost after conversion.

God as Free

God alone has freedom. Even though God grants certain freedom to man, he does this in his (God’s) freedom. We cannot speak of freedom merely in the area of negations or absence of limitations. "Freedom in its positive and proper qualities means to be grounded in one’s own being, to be determined and moved by oneself. This is the freedom of the divine life and love. In his positive freedom of His, God is also unlimited, unrestricted and unconditioned from without. He is the free Creator, the free Reconciler, the free Redeemer."³⁵ The Bible speaks of the freedom of God. In his creation God expressed his freedom. There was no outside pressure on him to bring the world and man into existence. The freedom of God in reconciliation means that he was under no compulsion to save man. His freedom is a presupposition of the whole story of salvation history. God’s entry into history, at first through individuals in the Old Testament and then finally in the person of his Son, expresses the fact of God’s freedom. To conclude that God is locked out of his created world is to confess that he is not free. Freedom means that he is above the world as it runs its course according to his laws and in the world transcending the law as he so wills, working in the form of a miracle.

A further word about God’s freedom and man’s freedom must be made. It is within the context of the freedom of God that he freely creates man with limited freedom. There are certain freedoms that man does not have. He cannot by himself, unaided, violate the law of gravity. He cannot continually turn back death or reverse the life cycle. He cannot turn back the calendar of time. But man does have a measure of freedom, particularly with different choices in life. All of this is within the context of God’s willing that man should have this freedom. Freedom is the supposition of prayer. God has willed in his freedom that man call upon him. "God is and wills to be known as the One who will and does listen to the prayers of faith."³⁶ Without the freedom of God, one could not suppose the possibility of God’s answering prayer. We cannot limit the results of prayer to a cliche such as, "Prayer makes me adjust to the adverse circumstances." It might do that, but prayer goes beyond that to the direct response of God’s acting within human history. "We need not hesitate to say that `on the basis of the freedom of God Himself God is conditioned by the prayer of faith"³⁷ The freedom of God stands in opposition to the idea of determinism. The Bible is opposed to a deterministic view. The great difference lies in the fact that Yahweh is personal. What he does will in freedom is done so in love. Determinism implies a strict machine-like universe, where even God , if he existed, is bound to a pattern of movement that is impersonal.

God as One

The Bible declares that God is one. Affirmed by Christians, misunderstood by others, both Testaments declare that there is one God (1Ti 2:5; Deu 6:4). This statement negates polytheism, dualism, and henotheism. It means positively that the doctrine of the Trinity is monotheistic in its expression. Theologians have sometimes used the word "simple" with reference to the unity of God to express the indivisibility of God. Wherever he acts, he acts completely and wholly as God. He cannot be divided. The concept of oneness can be misleading. All monisms are not monotheistic. Pantheism is a unitary expression, but it is not the picture of Yahweh in the Bible. One can make a monism out of nature, reason, spirit, fate, duty, and others, but this is not the biblical doctrine of the unity of God. To say that God is one is to declare that there is none like him. This sentence makes shipwreck of all other religious ideologies. "Beside God there are only His creatures or false gods, and besides faith in Him there are religions only as religions of superstition, error, and finally irreligion."³⁸ A final word of warning on the oneness of God. In trying to understand God’s self-revelation, many attempt to divide up the persons of God. In the Incarnation, which is attributed to the Son, it is no less the redemptive work of the Father and Spirit. Various works of God are attributed to one person or another of the Godhead, but it is the one Lord who is active in all.

Chapter IV, Who is God ¹Honest to God (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), pp. 10-28.

²Church Dogmatics, II-1 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), 347.

³ A. J. Ayers says concerning the verification principle "The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express--that is, if he knows what observations would lead him under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being false."- Alfred Jules Ayers, Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover Publications, n.d.), p. 35.

⁴ Cf. Frederick Ferre, Language, Logic, and God (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), p. 59.

⁵op.cit., pp.253-74

⁶ Note: See Tillich’s comment, "If the logical positivists cared to look at their hidden ontological assumptions as inquisitively as they look at the `public’ ontologies of the classical philosophers, they would no longer be able to reject the question of being-itself." Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), I, 231.

⁷ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II-1, 338 ⁸Cf. Ludwig Feuerbach, op.cit., pp.17ff ⁹op.cit., p. 238 ¹⁰Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1907), p. 248.

¹¹Systematic Theology, I, 211.

¹²Christian Doctrine of God, p.120

¹³"But even apart from explicit Biblical evidence, the Christian Idea of the Creator should itself force us to admit the reality of a revelation in Creation; for what sort of Creator would not imprint the mark of His Spirit upon His Creation?" Ibid., p. 133.

¹⁴ Tillich, op. cit., I, 244.

¹⁵Brunner, Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 139-140.

¹⁶Buswell, Jr., op. cit., p. 36.

¹⁷Tillich, op. cit. I, 215.

¹⁸Brunner, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 158.

¹⁹op.cit., p. 120.

²⁰Cf. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Press), 1958.

²¹See Brunner, Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 157-58; and Barth, Church Dogmatics, II-1, 360.

²² Tillich, op. cit., I, 272.

²³ Aulen, op. cit., p. 172.

²⁴Brunner, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 230.

²⁵Ibid.

²⁶ Aulen, op. cit., p. 133.

²⁷Joseph Henry Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon (New York: American Book Colossians, 1889), p. 666.

²⁸L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Pub- lishing Colossians, 1953), p. 71.

²⁹Barth, Church Dogmatics, II-1, 356.

³⁰ George D. Smith, The Teachings of the Catholic Church, p. 552.

³¹ ibid., p. 588.

³²Quoted in Ibid., p. 358 ³³Catechism of the Catholic Church, St.Paul: The Wanderer Press,1994, p. 319

³⁴Ibid., p.321 ³⁵Barth, Church Dogmatics, II-1, p.301 ³⁶Barth, Church Dogmatics, II-1, p.510

³⁷Ibid.

³⁸Barth, Church Dogmatics, II-l, 444.